http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Collaboration/Education A listing of the most recently indexed works about Articles and Collaboration and Education in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Collaboration/Education http://tc.eserver.org/35325.html http://tc.eserver.org/35325.html In May 2007, the Department of English at Utah State University (USU) redesigned its computer lab to increase mobility and collaboration during writing projects. Our study shows that despite the Professional and Technical Communication (PTC) field's efforts to promote writing as a socially active, collaborative practice, many students view computer labs as spaces for conducting isolated, single-authored work. In this article, we discuss how a combination of movable furniture and mobile technology, including wireless access and laptops, can enhance student collaboration in group-based writing assignments. The lab included both desktop and laptop seating areas, so the authors created a modified worksite analysis designed to evaluate team collaboration in this new layout. These material changes in the lab allow students to configure the space according to their needs, offering them some measure of control over three crucial elements of successful collaboration: formality, presence, and confidentiality. http://tc.eserver.org/35329.html http://tc.eserver.org/35329.html Aside from Writing Program Administration, the WPA journal, very little scholarly work about—or interest in—the topic of academic program administration has been manifested in the rhetoric-related disciplines. We believe that a mutual mentoring approach is an effective way to develop our community’s sense of the importance of program administration work as a scholarly endeavor in its own right. http://tc.eserver.org/34988.html http://tc.eserver.org/34988.html Current scholarship tells us that skills in teaming are essential for students and practitioners of professional communication. Writers must be able to cooperate with subject-matter experts and team members to make effective decisions and complete projects. Scholarship also suggests that rapid changes in technology and changes in teaming processes challenge workplace communication and cooperation. Professional writers must be able to use complex software for projects that are often completed by multidisciplinary teams working remotely. Moreover, as technical writers shift from content developers to project managers, our responsibilities now include useradvocacy and supervision, further invigorating the need for successful communication. This article offers a different vision of an ancient heuristic—stasis theory—as a solution for the teaming challenges facing today's professional writers. Stasis theory, used as a generative heuristic rather than an eristic weapon, can help foster teaming and effective decision making in contemporary pedagogical and workplace contexts. http://tc.eserver.org/34817.html http://tc.eserver.org/34817.html Regardless of the justifications we use for team member selection or the techniques preferred for managing team conflict, an often-overlooked yet critically important first step of collaborative assignments involves teaching teams about teamwork. Prior to working on a team project, students need to practice the collaborative skills required to complete the assignment. Although teaching teams about teamwork is not a new concept, students are often left to “sink or swim,” and they mistakenly apply individual work processes to group experiences. Falling under the categories of instructional methodology as well as classroom strategies, concepts related to teaching teams about teamwork provide students with the tools they need to perform well in collaborative assignments. http://tc.eserver.org/34825.html http://tc.eserver.org/34825.html Our classes have experienced higher quality outcomes when the Diversity Card Game was used to form teams than when the game was not used. Student feedback has also reinforced the value of the whole brain model through the card game. http://tc.eserver.org/34834.html http://tc.eserver.org/34834.html Whether in the workplace or the classroom, many teams approach problem-solving as a search for certainty—even though certainty rarely exists in business. This search for the one right answer to a problem creates unrealistic expectations and often undermines teams' effectiveness. To help teams manage their problem-solving process and communication better, I teach a systematic comparison approach that transforms the search for certainty into a search for the best alternative based on clearly defined and weighted criteria. With this method, team members realize that all problem- solving involves subjective judgments, but that making that subjectivity transparent increases the chances that an adopted solution will in fact solve the business problem at hand. http://tc.eserver.org/33553.html http://tc.eserver.org/33553.html The authors pursue three aims in this article. The first is to underscore critical praxis as an especially valuable approach to understanding and enabling teamwork. The second is to offer four dimensions of teamwork—vision, roles, processes, and relationships— as salient areas to interrogate using critical praxis. The third aim is to consider the implications and methods for teaching teamwork in the classroom context. In the process of doing so, the authors highlight limitations of prevailing theoretical approaches and note changes in their own practice of teaching and facilitating teamwork that have occurred through a commitment to critical praxis. http://tc.eserver.org/33554.html http://tc.eserver.org/33554.html To help students develop teamwork skills, teachers should be aware of the strategies students already employ to assert authority and manage conflict. Researchers studying engineering students have identified two such approaches: transfer-of-knowledge sequences, in which students emulate teacher and pupil roles; and collaborative sequences, in which students use circular talk to reach consensus. As demonstrated in this article, these strategies are also used by students in professional communication courses. The second half of this article provides specific suggestions for designing team assignments, interacting effectively with student teams, and developing evaluations that value the process of teamwork. http://tc.eserver.org/33555.html http://tc.eserver.org/33555.html This article describes the ways the authors incorporated team-building activities into our online business writing courses by interrogating the ways that kinesthetic learning translates into the electronic realm. The authors review foundational theories of team building, including Cog's Ladder and Tuckman's Stages, and offer sample exercises they have converted. The authors show how the medium affects the exercises, how the choices made as teachers affect the exercises, and how they adjusted to meet the needs of their students. The authors argue that teamwork most successfully occurs after team building, and too often this team building is lacking in online environments. http://tc.eserver.org/33556.html http://tc.eserver.org/33556.html This article proposes a pedagogical framework to help students analyze their group and team interactions. Intersecting five fundamental group attributes (group size, group goal, group member interdependence, group structure, and group identity) with three overarching group processes (leadership, decision making, and conflict management) creates an analytical tool for the examination of team interaction. Furthermore, each group attribute/group process intersection encourages analytical questions targeting assumptions, values, and ethical positions embedded within the group. One advantage of this heuristic device is that it weds team member behaviors with the values members espouse and enact during team interactions. Pedagogical considerations are also discussed. http://tc.eserver.org/33506.html http://tc.eserver.org/33506.html Student compositions traditionally are written for the teacher. Yet instructors of professional communication genres have discovered that students' motivation may be enhanced when they write assignments for audiences of peers within the classroom or professionals outside the campus. Yet client-based projects require writing students who have never yet written for an external audience to make a leap beyond the classroom. To bridge the gap between writing for classroom peers and writing for professional clients, this article describes a third and intermediate choice of audience, namely, external peers in cross-classroom collaborations that occur via telecommunication. The author places this intermediate-audience strategy within the larger conversation about the impact of audience on student writing outcomes, applies the strategy to professional writing pedagogy, and reports the results of a small pilot study that provide some preliminary support for the strategy. http://tc.eserver.org/32016.html http://tc.eserver.org/32016.html This study employed a quasiexperimental control group design in a university setting to test the effect of a rater-training program on reducing social style bias in intragroup peer evaluations after controlling for ability based on GPA. Comparison of rating scores of the test group to the control group indicated minimal social style rating bias in the test group, whereas significant bias was exhibited in the control group. Implications for college instructors who use peer evaluations for grading in team projects are discussed. http://tc.eserver.org/31808.html http://tc.eserver.org/31808.html Office politics goes on in most work environments. Learning the rules of office politics helps employees of both genders reap the rewards to which they are entitled. As future employees, students must become knowledgeable about office politics to be successful in the world of work. http://tc.eserver.org/30845.html http://tc.eserver.org/30845.html Teaching students to write persuasive messages is a critical feature of any undergraduate business communications course. For the persuasive writing module in my course, students write a persuasive message on the basis of the four-part indirect pattern often used for sales or fund-raising messages. The course text I use identifies these four components by their rhetorical functions: gain attention, build interest, reduce resistance, and motivate action. http://tc.eserver.org/30537.html http://tc.eserver.org/30537.html Most graduate students at the Air Force Institute of Technology's School of Logistics and Acquisition Management write their theses as a team project. However, the Institute has gathered no systematic information about how students manage their collaborative thesis-writing processes. This research gathers descriptive quantitative and qualitative data from 1992 graduates concerning how they composed the teem-authored thesis. In addition, this research extends the collective vocabulary concerning collaborative writing, particularly when applied in academic settings. http://tc.eserver.org/30391.html http://tc.eserver.org/30391.html Developing a strong student STC chapter is a challenging and rewarding experience. Those of us who are involved in this process can certainly benefit from sharing our ideas in a directed workshop atmosphere. Participants will exchange ideas and formulate working strategies for the development, maintenance, and growth of a student chapter. http://tc.eserver.org/29890.html http://tc.eserver.org/29890.html The purpose of this paper is to help educators and trainers design realistic working environments for team writing assignments and, thus, to prepare students to function on high-performance teams in the workplace. This paper describes differences and similarities between academic and industrial team working environments. It focuses on the kinds of tasks teams are asked to perform, the time and other constraints under which teams operate, the types of considerations that go into selecting people to participate in a team, the members' expectations about teamwork, the rewards used to recognize effective teamwork, and the role of the manager or course instructor. This paper offers suggestions to address some of the key challenges. http://tc.eserver.org/29892.html http://tc.eserver.org/29892.html This article provides a review and analysis of asynchronous chat sessions used by students to produce a collaborative formal proposal in an undergraduate technical communication service course at Bowling Green State University. The author/investigator reviewed archived chat sessions of the two most successful student groups and compared their experience to the conclusions drawn by a previous study on collaborative writing in the virtual classroom. The current study represents an initial exploratory attempt to replicate and/or refute the results of the prior study. http://tc.eserver.org/29215.html http://tc.eserver.org/29215.html Technical communication practices have been changed dramatically by the increasingly ubiquitous nature of digital technologies. Yet, while those who work in the profession have been living through this dramatic change, our academic discipline has been moving at a slower pace, at times appearing quite unsure about how to proceed. This article focuses on the following three areas of opportunity for change in our discipline in relation to digital technologies: access and expectations, scholarship and community building, and accountability and partnering. http://tc.eserver.org/29118.html http://tc.eserver.org/29118.html Individual students in two different sections of an undergraduate civil engineering laboratory were tasked with preparing three professional-quality laboratory reports. The teaching assistant and/or instructor used established criteria to grade the first two reports prepared by students in one section. The first two reports prepared by students in the other section were peer evaluated by assigned fellow students within the same laboratory section using identical grading criteria. The peer evaluated section had a higher class average than the teaching assistant/instructor graded section on the fist two reports. The third report prepared by students from both sections was graded by a professional educator/architect without knowledge of a student's class section. The peer evaluation students also had a higher class average on the third report, suggesting that the peer evaluation process may have positively contributed to those students' writing skills. http://tc.eserver.org/26578.html http://tc.eserver.org/26578.html For many students, their role as customers is their most significant interface with the business world. They understand, at some level, the organizational importance of building customer loyalty for the success of companies. Building on that understanding can provide a context that amplifies their knowledge of business and reinforces the value of effective communication. Using the organizational goal of building customer loyalty as a framework for class discussion and activities gives instructors a real-world rationale that brings the world of business into communication courses. This fresh approach shows you ways to focus student writing, presentations, and group process assignments around the theme of evaluating and improving customer loyalty. http://tc.eserver.org/24855.html http://tc.eserver.org/24855.html This panel segment focuses on facilitating interactivity and teaching a visual subject matter in a distance (satellite) learning environment. http://tc.eserver.org/24471.html http://tc.eserver.org/24471.html Many people disagree on whether collaboration is an effective tool in the workplace. Pros and cons exist on either side of the argument. This paper does not attempt to solve the argument or to suggest that every situation calls for the same solution. Instead, it relates the ups and downs of a real life project and the valuable lessons those involved have learned. http://tc.eserver.org/24470.html http://tc.eserver.org/24470.html Successful classroom collaboration requires teaching students about collaboration, having them read articles on collaboration, assigning project managers and guiding their management, and having all students evaluate and report on their teams and the collaborative experience. http://tc.eserver.org/23542.html http://tc.eserver.org/23542.html Research indicates that teams are more effective when they satisfy the social goals of their members. Therefore, teams that focus on interpersonal communication (the internal performance process) as well as the team's objective (the external product) improve their chances for success. It follows, then, that classroom instructors can enhance team success by adding interpersonal communication components to courses that use teams. This paper shows how we used this research to design an innovative NSF program. The program incorporated an interpersonal communication component to motivate student teams to succeed. http://tc.eserver.org/23572.html http://tc.eserver.org/23572.html After instituting training programs requiring 10 to 20 percent of every person's work week, Motorola reported that plants reinforcing the training received a $33 dollar return on investment for every dollar spent. The demand for training in new computer applications is growing. Selecting computer training options requires (1) an analysis of cost to benefits and (2) teamwork for preparing the materials and delivering the training. Some training techniques that work include knowledge mapping, pilot testing, and team training. http://tc.eserver.org/23365.html http://tc.eserver.org/23365.html Interuniversity partnerships are widely encouraged as a way for public universities to pool increasingly scarce resources, to minimize duplication of academic programs, and to cooperate rather than compete. Joint programs in technical communication have not been widely studied, but they seem especially logical for several reasons. http://tc.eserver.org/23364.html http://tc.eserver.org/23364.html Because many corporations now outsource significant portions of their business to external companies, it is important to study and understand the role of writing and, more generally, differing communication structures between organizations. In my experience, this is not a topic that is discussed in most technical communication classrooms. http://tc.eserver.org/23333.html http://tc.eserver.org/23333.html Many traditional college English departments now find themselves in an unpalatable predicament. Pressure from the marketplace and from other college disciplines has made clear that students need more than basic composition skills. They need skills to communicate effectively in business, research, and industrial environments. While enrollments in traditional literature courses have continued to decline, English departments are asked to staff and teach an increasing number of courses in various types of technical writing. These two trends have produced a less than harmonious climate within many English departments. Technical writing courses are often viewed by literature teachers as alien intruders unrelated both to the established goals of an English department and to the attempt to encourage and preserve the study of humanities and aesthetics. Many teachers see technical writing as intellectually arid, controlled only by format and mechanical approaches to clarity. Many more consider it antiliterature, unsympathetic to the methods used to teach literary analysis and appreciation. http://tc.eserver.org/23338.html http://tc.eserver.org/23338.html Those who teach mainly writing have a particular need for avenues of career growth because their tasks are especially repetitive and personally draining. One such avenue can be a year's leave of absence in industry. http://tc.eserver.org/23166.html http://tc.eserver.org/23166.html This article examines many surprising problems that arise in the process of distance education using the Internet and describes ways in which instructors and administrators can solve these problems. The information in the article is based largely on the experience of educators at Utah State University who have been exploring distance education for the past six years by teaching a wide range of online courses via the Internet. As a result of this varied online teaching, we have encountered a broad spectrum of challenges to which we have tried to respond and from which we have tried to learn. The solutions described are generalizable to other programs using online delivery for instruction. http://tc.eserver.org/22979.html http://tc.eserver.org/22979.html A rich discussion of collaboration as integral to writing in academia and the workplace has been on-going for some time among writing instructors and researchers. The outcomes of this discussion have convinced some writing instructors to promote peer feedback as one of the forms of collaborative writing in the classroom. In this paper we report on the preliminary stages of a longitudinal study of the role and place of peer feedback in the development of students' writing. http://tc.eserver.org/22219.html http://tc.eserver.org/22219.html On-line collaboration enriches the educational experience, especially if instructors use software environments that support group-generated projects, products, case studies, and other kinds of academic deliverables. Such activities are not supported well by the standard 'threaded topic' discussion formats of e-mail and message-based conferencing systems. http://tc.eserver.org/20969.html http://tc.eserver.org/20969.html When she learned that I would be teaching a course in her department, the department secretary made a mailbox for me and made sure that I received a copy of every memo and announcement distributed to the rest of the faculty. Other part-time faculty appreciated this service, so it became a part of the secretary's standard operating procedures. But I never received the mail because the mailbox was in Crookston, Minnesota and I taught the course by instructional television (ITV) from St. Paul, Minnesota, approximately 350 miles away. http://tc.eserver.org/19957.html http://tc.eserver.org/19957.html Businesspeople, faculty, and students can participate in learning communities in a variety of ways. Online learning communities provide benefits to individuals and the group, even if a community uses only low-tech communication tools. Learning communities are important because they create a human connection often missing in our Internet communication and allow people from diverse locations and backgrounds to share information and experiences. Effective learning communities celebrate diversity and create a supportive environment for members working toward a common goal. http://tc.eserver.org/19947.html http://tc.eserver.org/19947.html Technical communication programs should help students prepare to work with technical staff as well as develop writing, analysis, and communication skills. This presentation identifies assignments faculty can use to help students prepare to work effectively with technical staff: learning about what the writing technical staff do; learning about working in technical settings; interviewing faculty and staff; writing about science and technology for different audiences; editing a research article manuscript; learning about data networking; shadowing a technical professional; publishing a newsletter incorporating graduates’ observations and suggestions; having technical staff as well as technical communicators as guest speakers; and participating in STC. http://tc.eserver.org/19794.html http://tc.eserver.org/19794.html Collaboration through group writing assignments has become an accepted standard activity in most technical communication textbooks and classrooms. Some of the commonly-held fallacies connected with the view of collaboration’s benefits over individual efforts are that it produces better products, creates an equitable distribution of work, and provides greater motivation. It is also erroneously assumed that the success of collaboration depends on the study and effective practice of the principles of group dynamics and that collaborative techniques can accurately simulate “real life” readers and workplace experiences. Further research in group dynamics is required to accurately assess the value of group work in classroom settings. http://tc.eserver.org/19706.html http://tc.eserver.org/19706.html Technical communication courses and training programs often benefit from peer review or group critique. To encourage learning, these activities require a constructive climate: Students must listen to one another, be receptive to feedback, and refrain from reproaches, interpretations, and judgments. Such a positive group spirit is not a given, especially if the school or corporate environment encourages competition more than collaboration. Teachers must foster an appropriate environment if they want their collaborative learning activities to be successful. http://tc.eserver.org/19664.html http://tc.eserver.org/19664.html Feedback is central to learning. Practice makes perfect, as the saying goes, but practice without feedback does not allow students or training participants to improve. http://tc.eserver.org/14623.html http://tc.eserver.org/14623.html In this article, the authors describe the student management team (SMT) teaching concept, used to build appropriate teamwork competencies, and explain how they implemented an SMT in their technical writing course. http://tc.eserver.org/14043.html http://tc.eserver.org/14043.html With the shift in writing pedagogy from product to process, from emphasizing the individual writing--in a vacuum--to emphasizing the social context and social nature of writing, collaboration of some sort has found a place in most writing classes. The inclusion of collaborative projects in technical writing courses has a second, practical justification: the idea that these courses should prepare students for writing on the job, where collaborative writing is common.